TUESDAY TUMULT: MITOCHONDRION, RETALIATORY MEASURES, PAROXSIHZEM, VON, AND VOYAGER

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Oct 302012
 

Here’s another daily round-up of tumultuous metal (and artwork) that caught my attention while I rooted around the interhole over the last 24 hours. In no particular order:

MITOCHONDRION

These Vancouver-based beasts have two releases on the near horizon. First, Dark Descent Records will be releasing a 7″ single named Antinumerology that includes two new Mitochondrion songs: “Insummation” and “137 (Antinumerology)”. The striking artwork has been created by Richard Friend (Loss, Father Befouled), and you can see it on the right (click the image to see a larger version). I haven’t found a release date yet, though it looks like sometime in 2013.

Second, Siege Engine Records will be releasing a double LP version of the band’s 2011 album, Parasignosis. The label is giving away a free test press copy of the LP, though you have to be on Facebook to enter the contest. To do that, “Like” the Siege Engine Records Facebook page and then click on the “Contest!” link toward the top of the page and enter the e-mail address associated with your Facebook account.

The artwork for the LP was created by Alexander L. Brown, and apparently will include a Parasignosis poster that looks stunning (not sure if this will be sold with the LP or separately). A detail from the poster is up above. A photo of the whole thing is just after the jump, and more detail shots can be seen here. This is really great work. Continue reading »

WEEKEND VIDZ: LIVING SACRIFICE, RETALIATORY MEASURES, AND DOOMSDAY PROPHECY

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Jun 262011
 

Yesterday I saw three music videos from three bands I like, and I thought they’d make a good combined piece of entertainment for this Sunday. The music all qualifies as extreme, and no, there’s no clean singing in any of them, but there’s still a good variety of styles represented. We’ll start with a recently revealed video of Living Sacrifice performing at the Cornerstone 2008 festival. Then we’ll move to the first official video of a Finnish band called Retaliatory Measures whose most recent EP we reviewed just last week. Last but not least, we’ve got another brand new video, this one from a band we discovered in one of our MISCELLANY expeditions, Doomsday Prophecy.

LIVING SACRIFICE

I became a big fan of this band after seeing them on the 2008 tour that that marked their revival after an extended hiatus. It was one of those sets that gets burned into your memory — a performance by musicians whose maturity showed in the skill and self-assurance of their playing but whose energy level would leave lots of much younger bands in the dust. Yesterday I saw a post on their Facebook page about a video they’d never seen before of a show they did that same year — 2008 — at a festival in Illinois.

The visual quality of the footage is rough — which suits this song — but the sound quality is pretty strong. The whole package shows just how fucking heavy this band is and how much power they generate on stage. It’s a blowtorch performance of  a blowtorch song — coming up right after the jump. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: RETALIATORY MEASURES

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  12 Responses »
Jun 222011
 

In these SHORT BUT SWEET posts, we’ve been catching up with EPs released by both well-known and not so well-known bands from near and far. A couple weeks ago, we got a message from one of our Finnish readers whose NCS name is jeimssi, recommending that we give a listen to a band from Pori, Finland, called Retaliatory Measures, and so we have. And since we’ve already started the week with posts on Monday and Tuesday about Finnish metal discoveries, I thought we might as well just continue going with the flow on that.

Retaliatory Measures are relative newcomers. To date, they’ve released two EPs, the most recent of which is the subject of this post. It’s called MMX and it was released in December 2010. The EP delivers six songs, and I liked every one of them — even the brief intro track, which begins with an accomplished acoustic guitar instrumental before turning on the jets and charging seamlessly into the EP’s first full song, “Judgement”. In fact, my only real criticism of the EP is that the intro should have been integrated into “Judgement” as a single standalone track.

But that’s a minor criticism. MMX is a fast-paced package of death/thrash that hammers like a nail gun, with killer riffs, dark melodies, and truly bestial vocals. This regrettably short collection of songs will get stuck in your head like a big iron spike — and with the band’s permission, we’ll give you the chance to download it for free.  (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »